Out of work for months, Lussi Meyer is desperate to work anywhere in publishing. Prestigious Blackwood-Patterson isn’t the perfect fit, but a bizarre set of circumstances leads to her hire and a firm mandate: Lussi must find the next horror superstar to compete with Stephen King, Anne Rice, and Peter Straub. It’s the ’80s, after all, and horror is the hottest genre.
But as soon as she arrives, Lussi finds herself the target of her coworkers’ mean-spirited pranks. The hazing reaches its peak during the company’s annual Secret Santa gift exchange, when Lussi receives a demonic-looking object that she recognizes but doesn’t understand. Suddenly, her coworkers begin falling victim to a series of horrific accidents akin to a George Romero movie, and Lussi suspects that her gift is involved. With the help of her former author, the flamboyant Fabien Nightingale, Lussi must track down her anonymous Secret Santa and figure out the true meaning of the cursed object in her possession before it destroys the company – and her soul.

IN A NUTSHELL
An entertaining Christmas horror story, heavy on eighties horror nostalgia and publishing industry insider jokes. The humour worked and somehow helped to amplify the horror.

For once, the publisher’s summary got it right. This really was a “fun, festive, and frightening horror-comedy set during the horror publishing boom of the 80s”. Well, except maybe for the frightening bit. There’s a lot more satire than horror. 

I enjoyed listening to ‘Secret Santa‘. It felt fresh and lively from the beginning. It manages to be cliché-free and original while still poking fun at 80s horror (in a ‘we love it really’ kind of way. I loved that the book started in typical 80s fashion with two American soldiers in Germany at the end of World War II, finding a supernatural relic in the hands of a dead SS officer. I’m sure I’ve seen that movie. 

I liked the mix of 80s nostalgia (at least for those of us who remember the 80s) and publishing industry snark that generated most of the humour. I relished the slowly emerging sense of threat that our nice but sometimes naive heroine was mostly unaware of until it was way too late.

The plot was one of escalating horror, with the relic making some very bad things happen to people along the way. There were a couple of nice twists at the end (although they were the kind that made me smile rather than reach for my defibrillator).

If you’re looking for a festive horror comedy and you like 80s horror, you’ll have fun with ‘Secret Santa’.

I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Andi Arndt. Her narration made the book even more fun. Click on the YouTube link below to hear a sample.